Seattle Mariners shortstop Brad Miller, right, tags out Cleveland Indians' Drew Stubbs after Stubbs was caught between home and third in the ninth inning of a baseball game Tuesday, July 23, 2013, in Seattle. The Mariners won 4-3. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

So on a six-game trip to Minnesota and Seattle, two of the bleakest competitive outposts in the major leagues, a trip in which most good teams would have gone 6-0 or 5-1 or, at worst, 4-2 -- the Indians went 2-4.

Granted, it's a six-game segment in a 162-game season. But it came after what should have been an invigorating four-day All-Star break, and it came after the Indians went into the break red hot, having won four in a row and six of eight.

Their first six games after the break were set up for the Indians to continue to make some hay. Instead, they made some hey, as in "Hey, what's going on here?"

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The Indians, incredibly, went 2-4 on the trip in which their starting pitchers had a combined 1.48 ERA and they outscored their opponents, 25-14.

Is that even possible?

Apparently.

It's not as though they were facing a bunch of Randy Johnsons and Greg Madduxes on the trip.

The four losses came in games in which the opposition's starting pitchers were Mike Pelfrey, Kevin Correia, Aaron Harang and Erasmo Ramirez, who have a combined record of 17-22 and a 4.88 ERA.

Given all that, how could the Indians lose four of those six games?

Start with the astonishing nine errors they made in the six games. They did mix one errorless game in there, so they had nine errors in five games. That's a pace which, if kept up over a 162-game season, would produce 292 errors.

I'm no infield coach, but I don't think that's very good.

Lonnie Chisenhall had four errors in four games on the trip. In 1990, Cal Ripken made three errors in 161 games. That's not meant to compare Chisenhall to Ripken. It's meant to compare four errors to three errors.

The good news is despite laying two gigantic eggs in the upper Midwest and the Pacific Northwest, the Indians are only three games behind the first-place Tigers.

This thing is still doable, but it's good to keep in mind that in the Indians we're talking about a team that lost 94 games last year and is trying to reach the playoffs this year.

They spent big in the offseason, but none of their high-profile additions have contributed at or above the level expected of them. Nick Swisher, whether it's that injured shoulder or wrestling with the weight of expectation that comes with a big contract, has been a shadow of his Yankees self.

Michael Bourn is at or above his career marks in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage, but after averaging 51 stolen bases per year in each of the last five years, he only has 13 this year, and he leads the league in getting caught stealing.

A two-time Gold Glove winner in the National League, Bourn's .988 fielding percentage this year is his lowest in five years, and that figure doesn't factor in the four-base error he could have been charged with May 22, when Miguel Cabrera's fly ball landed in Bourn's glove and then bounced over the wall.

Mark Reynolds is hitting .113 with no homers and one RBI since June 29. Since May 30, he is hitting .166 with two homers and six RBI.

Drew Stubbs' numbers are almost identical to those he posted the last four years, which convinced the Reds he was expendable, while Jason Giambi is a designated hitter hitting .192.

Let's not even get into Brett Myers.

So it would be nice if the new guys started to contribute more, say along the lines of Scott Kazmir, Ryan Raburn and Mike Aviles.

But having said all that, there's still this: Offensively, the Indians are averaging 4.74 runs scored per game. Only three teams in the league are better than that. One of them, unfortunately for the Indians, is Detroit, which leads the league at 5.0.

The Indians are third in the league in on-base percentage -- another good stat for the Tribe -- but the Tigers lead the league in that category, too.

The Tigers' pitching is better than the Indians, whose pitchers have walked more batters and thrown more wild pitches than any team in the league.

Errors? The Indians have made the fifth-most, the Tigers the sixth-fewest in the league.

This all matters, because it's becoming apparent the Indians' best chance to make the playoffs is to win the division, not one of the two wild cards.

At the start of play Thursday, the Indians were 3 1/2 games out of the second wild-card spot.

With two months left in the season, however, the Indians still have time.